pop

As we arrived at school this morning J saw a kid get out of the car in front of us carrying two 12-packs of pop. 

J - OH DANG! 

Me - I suppose you were supposed to bring something for German today? (German is the only class that sponsors parties - all the time!)

J - Yeah.  I need you to go to King Soopers and get me 2 12-packs of pop and bring them back.

Me - Why? What is it for?

J - Frau is back.

Me - So you guys all have to bring her pop?

J - No, we're just having a party. Just go get me some pop.

Me - No. I'm studying for finals and I have a cold and I'm tired. I'm sorry you didn't remember.

Several hours later the phone rings.

J - Mom, seriously, I really need you to bring me some pop right now, it's time for German.

Me - Fine. Be waiting outside.

I grabbed the only pop we have that I was willing to give up (i.e. not my diet Pepsi w/lime) and drove to school. J opened the car door and his mouth fell when he saw a 12-pack of lemonade and a 12-pack of Fresca. 

J -Are you serious!?

Me - Yeah, that's all we had.

J - I told you Mt. Dew and Coke.

Me - Did you? (Seriously, I don't remember him saying that at all which I attribute to the cold) Well, this is what I have.

J - Forget it. I'll just tell her I forgot.

I take a couple things away from this story: First is that teachers do not need to ask students to bring in lots of pop (btw, wouldn't one 12-pack be sufficient from one student?) to celebrate her return from a short absence. Second, as much as I would like to hope that J will learn from this, I'm sure he'll mostly remember that I was mean and didn't do exactly what he wanted. It won't even occur to him that he was the irresponsible one, not me. 

I'll just add this to my list of 101 ways to annoy your teenager. It's amazing how fast that list grows...

Tree Trimming

One of the things I love about Christmas is seeing the wonder and excitement in little kids. Last Friday, after our mad morning of shopping, I set out to put up the Christmas decor. My 5 year old nephew was all too happy to help so we started with the trees. First, he helped me check lights and we discussed ways to make the tree even "wonderfuler" and "beautifuler" and we talked about why they don't make brown Christmas lights (Joshie's favorite color!). He's glad they at least make orange (his other favorite color) and maybe he'll put a string of all orange lights in his room. (His mom doesn't think they own a string of all orange lights...)

Let's start with the tree on the patio. This is our "Scandinavian Tree" and it has several matching ornaments (thus the theme). Joshie was happy about that and as he started hanging them up he said "OH! Another snowflake. I'll put that right by this one."  I should mention here that Joshie has been a liner-upper his whole life. He puts everything into nice, neat little lines - M&Ms, cars, pumpkins, anything. So pretty soon I looked over at the tree and realized there was a line forming:

Next we went to the living room and did the silver tree. Another theme tree which means more matching of like-ornaments:

Last we started on the family tree. (Yes, we do have 3 trees. Yes, I'm a little crazy. No, I won't come decorate your house. No, mom likely won't put up even 2 of them after I leave.) As we were decorating this tree Joshie shared some of his logic with me. I told him to be very careful with the glass ornaments because they can break easily. He said, "Yeah, so we have to put them down low [this is where I paused and listened closer] so they won't break if they fall." Oh! Ok, really, not bad logic. Not quite the way I think of it but I can see where he's coming from. 

Then Tiernan, who's 3, woke up from his nap and needed to help too. Both of the boys were oooing- and aahing at all the ornaments they unwrapped, it was great. Tiernan replaces many letters with "w" and he was just cracking me up. "Dis one is not wastic [plastic]. Dis one is wass [glass], I will hang it on the wanch [branch]." But, the show stopper was when someone handed him a nutcracker to hang up. "Oh, dis nutwhacker is not wass!" Oh my. That was a good laugh. I've never met a kid who has such a knack for saying things the most inappropriate of ways so innocently! 

My two little decorating buddies:

It was also so funny to look at the tree when they were done because they both chose a spot and stuck to it, putting pretty much all their ornaments on just a couple branches.  This is Joshie's branch - it was so loaded down that it was touching the floor. We did move some of the ornaments after boys left so that we wouldn't step on them...

Tagged

8 TV shows I enjoy watching: (This assumes I have time to watch TV?)

1. The Office

2. I used to like Lost but now I'm kind of lost so I think this one is out...

3. History Detectives

Seriously that's all

8 Things that happened yesterday: (I guess we're assuming on this one that I can remember yesterday and specifically eight things about yesterday...) [I started this yesterday which means now I have a different yesterday than the one I began with so I’m going to do a combination of the last 2 yesterdays because why start over? That might hurt my brain that is on vacation!]:

1. Sacrament meeting was the primary program (lovely job ladies!!)

2. We had Dad's birthday party

3. Did the laundry and changed the sheets

4. Mom and I finally finished assembling hygiene kits

5. Went to the library

6. Ate peach pie - yum

7. I laughed about my Cort furniture snow globe

8. I contemplated cleaning off my desk - the desk lost

8 Things I am looking forward to:

1. Christmas! Everyone will be here!!

2. The end of the semester

3. Snow

4. Reading a book that I want to read

5. Sleep

6. Waffles with chocolate chips and whipped cream for Joshie's birthday

7. Cooking yummy food (this might surprise some of you but I've been quite out of it)

8. Christmas enrichment will be a happy memory rather than a big to do list in just a couple weeks...

8 Things I love about Fall:

1. The leaves (is there anyone that doesn't love the leaves?)

2. Walking in the park (ok, this is a memory not a recent event but I'm pretty sure I used to like that in the fall.)

3. Cooler weather

4. The holiday season begins!

5. school supplies  What a dork! I know!  But really, when summer is ending and school is starting I love getting new school supplies.

6. Pumpkin - yum! 

7. Well, most fall baking really

8. Winter comes next and that’s fun

8 Things on my [I’m changing this from my “wish list” to my “thankful list” because I can’t seem to put my wishes out there. No worries, they aren’t weird or anything, they’re just touchy at the moment.]:

1. My family

2. Good friends

 The Gospel

 Technology

 Laughing

 Four seasons

 That I live in America

 Chocolate - let’s be honest, no ‘thankful’ list would be complete without it!

Tag! You’re it!

Tales from the...

Public restroom! Yes, it's time for some potty talk.  

First, there's a girl in my math class that for some reason I've run into in the bathroom multiple times. (Perhaps that's because I was blessed with a tiny bladder and spend more time in the bathroom than normal people...) This wouldn't be such a big deal except that she doesn't wash her hands! (You notice these things as you stand in line waiting for your turn.) One time she paused in front of the sink, while talking on her cell phone, and then apparently decided that there was no need to wash and she left.  

So, what's the big deal besides the fact that that is sick!? Well, we were grading each others quizzes in math yesterday and mine didn't get handed back in right away so the teacher asked who had it - it was the-girl-who-doesn't-wash-her-hands! Ish! I really wanted to tell her she could just keep it and I'll assume I did ok on it and we'll call it good. I held my tongue but it was a close one.

The other thing I've noticed among random people is even more disgusting! I know, one almost hates to ask what could be worse. I've seen more than one woman come out of the stall, proceed straight to the hand dryer, dry her hands and leave the bathroom. Pause! Let me know if I've forgotten something here (I'm running on less sleep than is recommended) but generally when one dries ones hands doesn't that usually indicate that there was moisture on the hand(s)? And if you just left the toilet stall and did not stop at the sink dare I wonder what is on the hand that needs drying? And, further, if I am correct in my assumptions, then I really wanna know what the heck is wrong with some people that they would dry pee on their hands to save themselves the trouble and time (what? one minute if you are really thorough maybe) of washing with soap and water before drying???

running through my mind

More random thoughts - sorry, that's about all I can handle at the moment.  :)

1. It's a good thing Pepsi products are on sale this week - my stock of Diet Pepsi is dangerously low!

2. Is it ever going to get cold?  Weird, I know.

3. Hmm, how late was it when I typed this paper?  There are a lot of typos...

4. I'm really thankful when I find things that give me hope!

5. After these papers all at once finals will seem like a breeze...  Hopefully. 

The big 16

Last Sunday we had Justin's birthday party. With the big 16 and all we had to have a party, right? 

So, I got pictures to load this time but they're in the reverse order that I wanted them... Whatever.    

Here's little Mia, my niece (she's Becky's but I get to claim her for the moment because this is my blog...) who got to enjoy some mushed up something or other while we all had cake and ice cream.  She kept looking at our plates, pretty sure that something was not right...  So not fair. 

Here's the birthday boy. You might notice something missing - lots of hair. About a month ago he decided he'd had enough and cut it off. He looks older and really great! :) And this is, of course, the best picture I could get of him. Grrr. (That's a mom 'grrr' for when mom's get annoyed with kids who just go out of their way to be difficult.)

This is the joker cake. Becky did a great job! The fondant joker piece was in a box on my bed when I got home from church (so that Justin wouldn't see it before the party) and I have to tell you, it kinda creeped me out when I looked inside. Maybe next year Justin will be into something cute and cuddly rather than creepy and menacing...  Right, I won't hold my breath.

We had confetti poppers and balloons and Joshie & Tiernan especially liked that! Such fun! 

AWOL

Where did I go?  Well, I've been a little overrun lately so I fell off the blogosphere but here's a little update.  Not in any particular order, I've been...

1. Writing long papers!  Only 2 left to do.  (That doesn't sound good to me yet...)  Here's my stack of reference material from paper #1:

And here's the aftermath of the post-it tabs when I have to return the books...  (Have I blogged about post-it tabs yet???  They're just about my favorite thing - best thing since sliced bread for sure!  If you haven't tried them, you should!!  If you need an idea of where to use such wonderful little things let me know and I'll help you.)

2. Worrying about J.  Who, by the way, just turned 16!!  Eeehh!

3. Working on a great service project with the RS and of course enrichment is coming up... on finals week...

4. Keeping up with political campaigns

Ok, I'll stop with the list.  But, I can't promise to be better about blogging for a few more weeks - I still have 1 1/2 projects in one class, 2 papers, 2 math tests...........

Oh, I tried to upload pics of J - much more interesting than piles of books but it won't work so maybe I'll try again later.